“Second star to the right, then straight on until morning.”

Monthly Archives: April 2009

In nearly four years, we’ve never managed to get close to one of these little critters. Until now….

As she was checking out the recent crop plantation, the missus spotted Mojo, on our deck, not moving, not responding to her calls, simply staring at something. On closer inspection, she found this fella, well and truly tangled in the pile of netting we’d left for the strawberries.

He wasn’t moving, the net wrapped tightly round his tail and back legs and it took a few minutes of careful "surgical operations" to snip the net with scissors freeing him.

He didn’t fight, he didn’t scratch and he didn’t bite her, which was a surprise. Cornered, these things will go for you so I’ve been told.

But then, he didn’t say thanks either…. just jumped down and legged it! I’m sure that isn’t what’s supposed to happen. I know, I saw it in a Disney film….

This one is from the deck of the house opposite us, so same view, just a different angle.

Much as the winter is good and my favourite season being fall in Canada, when it gets warm and the sunshine comes out, this is not a bad place to be. Can’t wait for the lake to warm up so we can go swimming again….

Well, we didn’t make Penticton, spending the entire weekend in the back garden planting our “crops” and building a new composting bin….

The weather was warm and sunny all day long, both days, so we stayed put and got cracking. Carrots, tomatoes, courgettes along with some other things. We’re just figuring out where to put some strawberries and raspberries. Must be getting fired up and going well, the missus wants to start her own gardening/veggie blog/website….

Saturday night, end of day #1, prawns, steak and salad on the BBQ, with a couple of beers and a glass or 3 of wine by the fire pit….

Been a bit quiet here for the last couple of weeks, waiting for the snow to, being blunt, “bugger off”! We even had a few mm’s drop on Thursday morning. I was alerted to this, when the missus got up for work and I heard, “Oh, dear god!”…. I knew something was up, as I’d done the washing and washing up the night before….

One thing, kept me busy, I was up the mountain behind us scouring for some wood, having had an idea to make a bookshelf out of some of the logs left behind after the dead trees had all ben cut down, when a friend turned up….

“Whatcha doing?”

“Seeing if I can use some of this wood to make a bookshelf.”

“What you gonna cut it with?”

“Well. I’ve got a hand saw….”

“Too funny, dude. I’ve got loads of wood in my garage not being used. And I’ve got some tools, eh…. Let’s go make you a bookshelf. We can have a few beers while we do it.”

So we did….

Pine, stained it myself. Got so carried away I did the old bookshelf and the TV cabinet thing whilst I was at it.

And now, I’ve got the DIY bug! Now, I’m planning a coffee table, a garden potting table for the missus, as well as a couple of other things, including a somewhat “major project” in the works….

The kids have returned to school and we almost made it past the first week without incident, until Friday morning, when I got a call from them, saying to come pick up Sam, as he’d been whalloped in the eye by a soccer ball. He’s fine. A lot of drama over nothing in my book, but “you’ve got to be careful”, so the school nurse was telling me….

Parties and cooking are going to be the plan of action for today with a trip to Penticton and their skateboard park tomorrow, as the temperature is due to hit 16 degrees. We’re going to grab a camp stove this afternoon and cook our chicken curry on a beach somewhere on the way home.

Next weekend is the first tournament the Kelowna United boys are taking part in. It’s spread out over the entire 4 day Easter long weekend, not sure why, but there you go. It’ll be good to get to see how they fare against teams from Calgary, Kamloops and other places.